


The Territory is Not the Map

by rabbitprint



Category: Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children
Genre: General, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-07-13
Updated: 2009-07-13
Packaged: 2017-10-04 12:17:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rabbitprint/pseuds/rabbitprint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-FF7, pre-AC. Rufus/Reeve. Reeve is busy looking towards the future, but Rufus still sees the past.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Territory is Not the Map

**Author's Note:**

> _"The map is not the territory." -- Alfred Korzybski_

Reeve sees cities in people. It's not mystical, not something he's always been able to do -- though he likes to think of it that way sometimes, as if he was led to urban planning and development in some kind of holy calling. Indulging in that kind of fantasy makes him feel like he's a fresh-faced undergrad again who believes, truly _believes_ that the key to world salvation lies in proper enforcement of zoning code violations. That was a time before graduation, before ShinRa. Before office politics and bureaucracy. Before mako reactors came out of his hands and he earned himself fifty hours of meetings in each forty-hour workweek.

Reeve sees cities in people. He's wrong with over half his guesses, misidentifying someone's accent or their mannerisms, thinking he sees Rocket Town's rooftops in an elderly man's shoulders from Icicle Inn, Junon's cynicism in a Kalm woman's mouth. It doesn't bother him. Reeve likes to see the resemblance that an urban development has on its inhabitants. He wants to say it goes both ways. People embody cities. Cities are the solid forms of people.

There are a dozen good, sound psychological reasons to back his observations, but Reeve entertains the hope that there's something more to it all -- a symbiotic connection between people and streets, as if the spirit of one flows directly into the pulse of the other. Elemental. Primal. Maybe it only manifests in the people that each city depends on the most. Maybe a city has to matter that much to someone first. Maybe.

Reeve's always been fascinated by the edge between animate and inanimate, though. Sometimes toys seem alive. Sometimes people seem like places. And sometimes, there are particular individuals which embody the heart of the neighborhoods they live in, like walking avatars, so deftly intertwined in the making of their environment that it's impossible to tell where the city begins, and where the person ends.

He's drawn endless parallels between Midgar's Sectors and its Board of Directors during his stint with the SEPC; he's seen the obvious similarities of Rufus's father to the metropolis that was crafted under his reign. Excess reigned during the command of the elder ShinRa. Glut. Bloat. Indifference. Midgar under Rufus's hand would have changed in subtle ways, but Reeve never had a chance to see how much -- unless absolute destruction counted, and that was a joint effort with Sephiroth and the Planet anyway.

Rufus is son to ShinRa. Edge is daughter to Midgar.

Even if no one else thinks that way, Reeve at least can acknowledge the family tree.

He goes to visit Rufus the summer after Geostigma hits. Edge had just acquired its first working sewage distillation plant: a cause for rejoicing by all. It had been hijacked out of the remains of Sector VII factories, and could only process a third of its maximum capacity, but at least Edge's inhabitants were one step further away from a slow death by dysentery.

He drives slowly through Edge, nosing the van with its jumble of parts through narrow roads, soaking in the feel of the ragtag squats. Healin Lodge is far enough outside of town that Reeve could have taken a shorter way by looping through the wasteland, but he indulges in the long drive through the city. Through the rumble of the van's engines, he pretends he can hear the rush of processed water through sewer pipes, bubbling up through the tires.

Healin is quiet. A few other cars are parked in the staff lot, ranging from battered pick-ups to the sleeker models that must belong to businessmen. The SEPC president -- former president, Reeve corrects himself, and then re-corrects again -- _current_ president is keeping his new headquarters active, despite its role as a recovery lodge. Rufus would have to. There are only vestiges of the SEPC left, mostly in outreach companies that have offices outside of Midgar, and which are sheltered in separate tax brackets. The surviving accountants are scrambling to haul them back in before any of them try to break away completely. Junon is a ShinRa stronghold -- ruined by WEAPON, hobbled with a struggling economy, but still dominated by the SEPC -- except that the local government has started to demand more autonomy, and Geostigma is hitting it hard enough that everyone is simultaneously staking out and refusing jurisdictions. Reeve had received the gossip out of one of the Accounts Managers who had come to him in tears and a haze of vodka. It's hard not to be sympathetic.

He leaves Cait watching the van, confident that that'll be enough protection from Turk mischief. Reno always likes to complain about how much Reeve's toys creep him out. A few strategically-placed stuffed animals might not be the most dignified of security systems, but it works.

Rude tips him a nod as Reeve goes up the stairs.

Rufus's office is a haze of stale heat. The blinds are closed, long curtains shut, so that the light diffuses itself in a murk of beige and office ivory. The main room is empty. Reeve moves through it without waiting for anyone to show up and escort him further in. He's become familiar enough with the layout over the last few months that he knows where to go, what with all the bargains he's had to strike. He can't wait until he can forget it.

The actual office is behind the first door to his right. Reeve knocks once; when no answer comes, he nudges the door open with his fingers and sees that it's empty. Rufus hasn't arrived yet. There's no chair at the desk -- only one tucked aside in the corner, draped with a white cloth like a piece of forgotten furniture that's been left to hide from dust.

Reeve knows better.

He makes himself at home, unwilling to linger at the doorway like a petitioner. The toolbag gets set down with a _thump_ on the rug. Rufus's desk, at least, shows signs of occupation: paperclips in a tangled cluster, a blank stack of sticky notes on the side, a tiny battered tin of peppermints. Pens cluster in a mug that has a jaunty _Midgar is #1!_ on the side, sporting a _-#1_ after someone creatively added a minus sign with marker.

Reeve nudges it aside with a wry smile, unslinging the architecture tubes and setting them down on the desk, bracketed on either end by a tape dispenser and stapler to keep them from rolling. Inside are plans for safe supply routes into Midgar, and some structural work for Edge. In better days, they would have been printed on vellum and acetate. Now, he's lucky to have one sheet in twenty be anything but newsprint; without Midgar, he's been having to get drafting paper shipped in from Gongaga, and their copy machine is shoddy enough that it likes leaving die-cut lines spattered all over the elevation curves.

A rustle of fabric behind him is Reeve's only warning, and even then only because he's expecting it.

"Running late, Reeve?" The tone is playful. "Traffic wasn't _that_ bad, was it?"

Even knowing better, Reeve freezes; he starts to hide his reaction and then doesn't, knowing Rufus waited on purpose to show himself until Reeve had settled in. Yet another step in the game. Sometimes, Reeve forgets that Rufus still operates with a corporate slant, even when company politics no longer determine the field. "Sorry. No, the roads were fine." Fine: not abandoned, not clogged with cars. Reeve exhales and uncaps one of the tubes, sliding out the plans cocooned inside. "I ended up dallying."

Rufus makes an amused noise, halfway between a chuckle and a sigh. "I'll take it out of your fee."

The president doesn't sound bothered. Other men would have succumbed to half-serious, self-pitying jokes as a punchline -- referencing fallen men for fallen cities - but Rufus only seems to bear his architecture with pride. When no comment on the streets comes, Reeve unpacks the sandweights out of their carrying sling and set them down on the corners of the plans, pinning down the curling drafting paper under discs no bigger than his palm. He'd finally replaced all the ones that had been monogrammed with the ShinRa logo; these ones are blank leather, stitched and waxed to keep their contents from leaking out. It had been a small change, but satisfying.

He wonders if Rufus has noticed. Or will notice; he wonders what Rufus will do either way. As the president finishes strolling over to the desk and reaches out to touch the nearest sandweight, Reeve finally looks up.

He blinks. "What happened to your eye?"

Rufus's fingers slip away from the sandweight. "Nothing. It's just a little sensitive to light right now. Don't worry -- I don't use it to sight my guns."

Reeve keeps staring. Despite the warmth of Healin, Rufus is clothed from head to toe. That alone is not atypical for the ShinRa president, but the gauze that has been wrapped around his throat and head is new. The single band gracing his face doesn't obscure the left eye completely, but leaves it veiled, protected like a secret. The bandages turn the white and black of Rufus's suit medicinal. Sterility replaces fashion; the transition is effortless.

Clearing his throat, Reeve tries to forge ahead. "It's strange to think that these are the last plans I'll be making for you, Rufus." Too late, he hears the morbidity to the words; he winces inwardly and tries to explain. "I've got to focus my full efforts on the WRO. With the mapping plotters you're trading us for these, we'll be able to get diagrams printed out at a faster rate. The time saved will be invaluable when the WRO moves on to aid the recoveries in Junon and Kalm as well."

Turning around, Rufus leans against the desk. Sunlight drenches his jacket the color of cream. "Three plotters. Ten plans. Was _that_ the agreement?"

Reeve's mouth firms. "It was."

"Seems like such a small price to cut ties over." Folding his arms, Rufus cants his head. The left side of his face is towards Reeve; gauze blurs the contours of his expression. "So, you still have big dreams of fixing the world? Even in today's climate, that takes money. And building up a powerbase is a significant time investment. Are you sure you can't accomplish your goals more efficiently while being employed by us?"

For months, Reeve has asked himself that same question, over and over again in countless variations. The answer's never changed. "I've already left the SEPC, Rufus. Experienced civil engineers are needed out in the field, not cooped up behind bureaucratic red tape. Once I had a single city to care for. Now, that city is as big as the world. I'm going to do what I feel is best for it."

"Midgar and the world aren't exclusive," Rufus replies, in a detached musing that's too mild to be anything other than a warning.

Reeve heeds it. "You're no novice at business, Rufus," he explains. "What did the Marketing Team always do when a product had its brand severely compromised? They repackaged it, changed the name, changed everything they could because they _knew_ the power of associations. I want to help the world. It needs to be _built_, to be rebuilt, to have its shacks turned back into towns. ShinRa is a name that's been tainted in the public eye. It will take time to fix that -- and that's not what I want to spend my energy on. Now, you're right that Edge also needs help. So, if there are any old favors I owe the Company, I'll settle the matter through trade. Well," he amended, feeling the tirade leave him quickly, "and through what Tseng asked me to attend to."

Rufus's eyes are inscrutable. In the hazed light, they seem darker than they should be, blue edging to gunshine grey. "Ah." The sound is shaped in a puff. "I'd heard he had a second request."

Reeve nudges his bag with the point of his shoe. "I wouldn't carry all this up here otherwise."

Sweeping an arm towards the corner of the room, Rufus turns, using the motion to shift the rest of his weight back onto the desk. His coat crinkles into folds around his legs. "I'll let you get to that then."

Reeve understands his cue. He gets to his feet, fetching his workbag and lugging it over to the shrouded form. Rufus doesn't move from the desk. Whether it's because he can't, or he doesn't want to, Reeve isn't sure.

The dropcloth comes away like a shroud. The shape of the object is basic enough. The wheelchair is a standard model, but automated to move with a minimum of pressure from its occupant's hand. There is no large stick to toggle; the required motions are discreet. It's not perfect, but it serves the purpose of discretion.

Reeve tries not to focus on the man who should be using that chair, but it's hard when the only other sound in the room is Rufus's breathing, soft and irregular. Reeve has to hold his own in order to hear it. He makes it easier on them both by unzipping one of the pockets of his bag and shaking out a set of four small chipboards. He measures the first one against the wheelchair's rail, estimating the size of the mounting brackets. Then he reaches for a screwdriver.

Rufus's interest comes just as Reeve has his neck craned back to look up the wheelchair's arm piping. "What are those for?"

Reeve rotates the chipboard, then holds it up for examination. His other hand paws through the trays of the parts bag, sifting and sorting by touch. "They're locator beacons. Part of Tseng's request for upgrades. Your Turks seem to feel that it would be a good security measure if they can find you reliably -- in the event that you go missing."

"I should be more worried that he feels it's necessary at all then. Anyway," and Rufus's humor is dry, "it can't be _that_ difficult to find a large metal object."

"We said the same thing about the WEAPONs, at one point." The joke feels flat; he didn't mean to reference their mutual past. Having it slip out it makes Reeve realize just how tired he's getting. It's been less than half an hour, and he's already exhausted from being around Rufus. "Maybe Tseng just wants to make sure it won't get stolen and chopped up for parts. It's not like you can get any repair technician off the street, not without letting the rumor mill get even more out of hand. Not without -- "

He stops there.

"Not without letting people know how sick I am," Rufus finishes softly. His mouth quirks. "You're as sharp as ever, Tuesti."

Reeve doesn't say anything in contradiction. He doesn't need to. Instead, he focuses on the wheelchair. This problem, at least, he can find answers to. The structure appears sound. There are a few screws that can be replaced with ones that would hold better weight, and he removes them first, checking their lengths and threads. He doesn't have the heart to discard them, but retaining them would just be asking for trouble; Tseng might try to call to ask where they'd gone, and that would be just another lure to bring Reeve back for another visit.

Getting back to his feet, Reeve searches for a spare bag that could hold the old screws, and comes up with nothing. "We should keep your extras for emergencies. Do you have an envelope?"

Rufus hooks his fingers down, tugging open a drawer. The first one slides open and closed without results, but the second one rattles. From the angle he's standing at, Reeve can see the source of the noise. Dozens of plastic bottles fill the drawer -- some full, others nearly empty. A few globes of Materia are packed among them, each one a rich enough green that it could buy a small neighborhood with the mastery value.

The full bottles are what catch Reeve's attention. Some still have their plastic seals intact.

When he jerks his gaze away from them, he sees Rufus watching him.

If the president is bothered, he doesn't show it. "Remedies that don't work," he explains dismissively. "The Turks try to make me take everything. Then they insist on things for the pain. Reno says the ones he steals from children's clinics are better tasting. I don't know if he's kidding or not."

Reeve weighs the answer, watching Rufus fish through the drawers. Opportunities to go on the offensive are rare; he might as well take advantage now. "Do you see the maps next to you, Rufus? The one on top has a large circle in the central neighborhood. On planning diagrams, designations like those are called major anchors. Commercially, they serve a basic purpose, but architecturally, they're more. A major anchor directs the eye. Developments are built around it, and while the anchor itself can change if an investor moves out -- department stores into movie theaters, theaters into art galleries -- the prominence still needs to be there. It helps define what's around it. It forms its own gravity. Your father," he continues briskly, "was Midgar's major anchor. I thought you would be too, when you assumed the presidency. Then we lost Midgar, and this is what's left. So, you have a choice now. If you don't act quickly, then the ruins of Midgar will default to be the major anchor, and whenever someone thinks of Edge, they'll think of it only as a response to a disaster. Nothing more. So listen to the Turks. They're trying to help."

The room feels suddenly heavy as he finishes: heavy, and empty. He's not sure he meant to say half those words. In all of Rufus's manipulations, Reeve had forgotten the man's ability to do that -- to sneak in, to unsettle, to infiltrate until a person was so off-balance that they'd agree to anything. Illness hasn't slowed Rufus down one bit. Reeve can tell because he feels raw suddenly, unwanted memories casting the room in a different light. Years of fluorescent bulbs and office cubes crawl into his brain. He feels trapped.

He exhales; then Rufus holds out a plastic zipbag.

"'Reeve,'" the president says suddenly. "That's a word with meaning. It was used to describe a man, usually from the common populace, who would supervise a territory for a higher official. You were my father's reeve. You were mine for a little while. And now you want to leave."

One by one, Reeve feeds the screws to the bag. They drop like falling fruit. "I want to put the world back to right again, Rufus. I left because I _could_ leave. I know it's different for you. Or," he adds, lowering the screws and looking hard at the other man, "is it?"

Rufus's gaze drifts up from their hands. "Do you think I would just run off?"

"Most people would. Toss it all in, abandon the family name, and move on. But you and your father both had such pride." A belated afterbeat; Reeve realizes the tense. _Had._

Beside him, Rufus moves in an orchestra of fabric, crossing his legs at the ankle. "Already written me off as exactly like my old man?"

Reeve finishes dropping the screws into the bag, and seals it. His fingers squeak over the plastic. "No. Your cities are different."

The comment, cryptic as it is, causes Rufus to pause. "Midgar _is_ a little more battered than before, I will admit," he states blandly, and as the sentence trails, Reeve leaps on it.

"Midgar _isn't_ your city, Rufus. That's what everyone has wrong, including yourself. Edge belongs to you. Let Midgar go."

The office goes quiet.

In the parking lot, a distant engine coughs and turns over.

"A World Regenesis Organization," Rufus muses at last. "I should sue you for taking the catchy name first. But do you really think everything can be regenerated?"

There are a thousand tricks to that question, lying in wait for any answer that might blunder. Reeve chooses to cut straight to the chase. "Edge is proof of that, Rufus. Your city is alive. It's damaged -- but it's alive." In his hand, the plastic bag starts to slide; he sets it down suddenly with a click of screws. "You should take care of it."

Rufus straightens up in a resurrection of dignity, made all the worse for the bandages. Splotches of Geostigma stretch like graphite smears across his neck. "I'm _dying_, Reeve." His voice is tight. The cold anger that lurks inside it is almost concealed -- _almost_, save that Reeve has seen how viper-quick Rufus can be when his temper has been pushed. "If there is no one to take my place, then I will be dead and Edge will have _nothing._ So _you_ will have to remember that it exists, one way or the other. You can't run from this. Edge is here, whether it's part of Midgar or its own entity now, and it needs support." The bitterness breaks off for lack of breath; Rufus inhales sharply before he twists his voice back on the assault. "So. Is it that hopeless of a prospect to you now?"

Reeve is two seconds away from being baited into a retort before he sees the guarded expression in Rufus's eyes. The question isn't a taunt -- it's the inquiry of a CEO for advice, looking for the educated opinion of the Board even when no Board exists. Rufus needs to know. He's still trying to make the best judgement call he can.

Because this is also Rufus, ruthless, able to make the decisions of personnel cuts and executions on TV as needed, to fix a goal in mind and follow it -- and if that is a Midgar trait or a new quality that flourishes in Edge's desperation, Reeve doesn't know. But it brings him up to his feet, touching Rufus's shoulder as carefully as one of his architecture models, cupping the delicacy of bone instead of metal girders.

"The people are the city," he says urgently, the old urban planning motto coming out like a fragmented riddle. "The city is the people. The two may hate each other, but their fates are intertwined."

"And this city _needs_ you," Rufus replies, his fingers coming up and knitting themselves in the front of Reeve's jacket, gripping the lapels like a lifeline.

At the touch of Rufus's hands, Reeve feels the remains of his weary resistance crumble away. He closes his eyes. He acts blindly.

He answers the only way he can.

Leaning forward, Reeve sets his head against the other man's temple, feeling warm skin press against his mouth. What comfort he offers is clandestine. If he could use Rufus as a conduit for Edge, he would; if Reeve could infuse life into lifelessness by simply touching the president, breathing strength into Rufus the same way he inspires his toys, then he'd never hesitate.

Rufus's shoulders jerk once -- and then stiffen, unwilling to admit to vulnerability. Reeve does it for him. He wraps his arms around the other man and holds on tight, surrendering the boundaries that he had established between them. He tries to fill the gesture with everything he can of reassurance, all the assistance and support he had just spent the last hour denying, helpless against everything he had just offered with his own touch and knows he cannot, //will not// fulfill. He's already breaking promises. Meteor falls, Sephiroth explodes, and Reeve is still a man between two worlds: ShinRa and AVALANCHE, people and cities, business suits and stuffed cat toys.

After a moment, he starts to let go.

Rufus's voice halts him. "So you're one of those types who's afraid you can catch Geostigma from touching someone else?"

"No." Reeve answers honestly. He swallows after he does. The office heat is making his mouth dry.

"Prove it."

The challenge doesn't wait. Rufus leans back just enough to turn his chin, and then he sets his mouth on Reeve.

In Rufus's kiss is all the desperation that the man refuses to show. Reeve tries to tame it, to bring it back to ground, forced to respond in the game of nerves. The president's mouth is ripe with intensity. Rufus is testing him; Rufus is _always_ testing, always playing and deadly serious at the same time. If Reeve pulls away now, he would imply his convictions are empty.

He works gently, hungrily at Rufus's lips instead. They taste of sour undertones, spit and medication -- of the dying neighborhoods of Rufus's bones. This close, he can see the soft, fine hairs on Rufus's upper lip where a razor had missed shaving, almost invisible, turned translucent gold in the office light.

Reeve knows that living beings have a need to reach out to one another. It's a side effect of disasters. The closer a person comes to death, the greater their craving for reassurance. But what Rufus demands and what Reeve can provide are two different things. Reeve quit ShinRa, he quit politics, he quit everything that was keeping him from doing _what he wants_ in life, which is to build things for people. He has no loyalty to the Company itself -- but he can't turn away from the people in their drafty homes with brackish water, from the broken streets to the shattered lighting, from poverty and helplessness and fear.

He never could.

Reeve's fingers shake as he lowers them. He unbuttons Rufus's jacket, fumbling with the double-breasted lapels, pushing back layers of white and black fabric until the skin underneath is revealed. Rufus's stomach is marked in blotches, as if the dyes leaked through and stained him.

Reeve pushes him down, spreading him out across the papers. Rufus's weight is pliable against his hand. He can only imagine what they might look like to an outside observer, with one of Rufus's arms flung out to the side, cheeks streaked with heat. Rufus's mouth has gone slack as he pants in shallow breaths to keep from the indignity of gasping. Both of them are damp with sweat, glistening with need.

Rufus's fingers scrabble at the desk again, yanking the medicine drawer open; he's pushing Reeve's hand _down_ insistently, until Reeve's thumb is brushing the heat of both their groins. For a crazy moment, Reeve isn't sure what to do next -- there are too many options, so much to touch on the other man, and no clear guide on what would cause the best reaction. A plastic cap snicks open. Cool oil drips over Reeve's palm. He's startled until he sees the bottle starting to slide out of Rufus's hand, gleaming with lubricant and sweat. Then he takes it before it falls, pouring the rest out clumsily, slicking himself until his skin looks drenched.

When Reeve slides his finger in to the first knuckle, Rufus arches his hips, accepting the pressure without complaint. His eyelids are partially closed, drifting languid as a drunkard. His face is flushed. Reeve's own pants are painfully tight; Rufus solves that too, his fingers wrenching at Reeve's collar, pulling forward so that Reeve nearly loses his balance and falls into the blueprints. Street names dance in front of his eyes. He sees the ends of gauze bandages slipping loose. He feels Rufus's hand unzipping him, the warm air of the office brushing against his own bared skin, the texture of cotton rubbing his thighs.

It's a sticky, messy jumble of limbs. The edge of the desk hits Reeve's legs, and he leans over it, _into_ it, into Rufus and then he's kissing Rufus again, chasing the pulse of the man's heartbeat down his neck. Reeve's mouth is making helpless noises without waiting for permission; he lets it. He passed the point of embarrassment long ago, and shame was sold out when he was still drawing a company paycheck.

Rufus is a chalk outline over the plans. His palms fan over intersections and power lines as Reeve adds a second finger; he laughs deep in his throat, low rumbling chuckles that hitch on the edges when they can't keep faking relaxation. The gauze is slipping off his brow. It's tightening around his throat, and Reeve reaches up to tug it away, throwing it haphazardly across the neighborhood boundaries. Edge is a knot of sewage lines and power grids. If the city could laugh too, Reeve thinks it would sound just like the SEPC president.

In both of them, Reeve can read a fierce desire to live, despite so much dying. Rufus is a perfect poster child for his metropolis. They are both scarred heirs to Midgar; they daily battle their own decay, paying the price for years of decadence. Golden children, with stains of blight upon them, dipped in the ShinRa name.

They are part of everything that Reeve has ever wanted to put right again, no matter how many times he tells himself he doesn't care.

Fucked, Reeve thinks sharply as his thumbs press into Rufus's hips, hating the obscenity even as he can't deny its appropriateness. The word is _fucked_ whenever ShinRa is involved, sex or not, regardless of who's physically on top. Rufus is in control. Despite being sprawled on his back across his own desk, his body yielding to Reeve's intrusion, Rufus is effortlessly in control.

And Reeve's burying himself deep in the other man, losing track of all the reasons that led him there. Somewhere along the way, he'd pushed further and further until there's no distance left to cross, and all he can do is rock against Rufus, small thrusts that nudge them both against the desk. The office is hot; the office is stifling. Sweat rolls beads down Reeve's spine as he holds steady and feels the tightness of Rufus's muscles. Paper wrinkles and tears.

Rufus's hands are tight on Reeve's arms.

Reeve starts to shudder -- realizes he _has_ been shuddering in long, powerful spasms that start at his hips and work their way up -- and forces himself to stop. It's almost not in time. Rufus is hot around him, and Reeve hasn't given himself the luxury for this kind of thing in so long, too busy with the logistics of saving the world for intimate contact.

He holds himself steady. When he starts to pull out -- aching, but not daring to finish -- Rufus's eyes fly open.

"Already lost your nerve?"

Caught between two ultimatums, Reeve surrenders in a rush. Rufus's spine arches as Reeve shoves back in, hips flush against Rufus's thighs. He's got Rufus pinned down down a butterfly and he doesn't care; he _doesn't care_, he's drowning in the ache of seeing Midgar wasted, Edge hobbled, and being unable to put any of it back together. He braces his weight against the desk. He bites his lip and doesn't feel it. The circulation in his hands is numb. In the rush of his nerves, all that exists is both of their hungers, both of their _needs_, and the dizzying spread of city blocks detailed in black and white underneath Rufus's back.

And then Rufus closes his eyes, puts his head back, and comes with his teeth clenched shut.

Reeve has the politeness not to collapse on top of Rufus afterwards, though it's tricky; all the strength has drained out of his arms, and they're both tangled up in too many layers of clothing. His heartbeat is galloping away. In an attempt to remember normalcy, he makes a feeble attempt to smooth down a crumpled fold of the plans, and fails miserably.

Rufus turns his head, touching his cheek to the bent corner of Fifth and Main dissolving into grey smudges beneath him. He opens his mouth gingerly, breathing through it before he gathers the effort to speak. "They'll have to be redone."

Streaked in drying sweat, Reeve bends his head down, resting it against the damp flesh of Rufus's shoulder. He understands the words better this time. Edge is a future. Rufus needs help to nourish it. Even so, there isn't much that Reeve can give. A promise, as much as he could make one -- and maybe that was Rufus's plan all along, or it just happened to get incorporated into the agenda along the way.

There's a bruise starting to form on Rufus's shoulder. It's the size of Reeve's thumb. He's added to the territory lines of the ShinRa blueprint now, in more ways than one.

He realizes Rufus is waiting.

"Yes." Reaching out, Reeve traces the spot on Rufus's arm. "I'll draw them for you."


End file.
